For those wondering why he doesn't just come out, he's an Hawaiian mormon, who are (at least generally) very sheltered and conservative, and is going to the school that hasn't let a LGBT group form for 20 years, and now they are letting it form, they are forcing the group to promote chastity.

Add in to the fact that his dad probably didn't want to believe his star football son was gay, I can understand why he created the girlfriend (though the car accident/cancer part was not smart)

FinFangFark:Lost Thought 00: If this lasted a month, maybe 2 months, I could see him just being duped. But several years? No way in hell

Exactly.

Let's say Mauia is right, and there is some woman out there scamming these Samoan football players...or even the Tuiososopa kid is involved in it. This went on for 4 years. At some point, you have to wonder where the "relationship" was heading, right? So either Te'o knew at some point it was a hoax, and ran with it, or he was just flat out dubbed for 4 years...which makes him the meme of all memes.

But I still stick with my initial thought, the gay guy creating an online beard for his family, and it gets out of control.

I dont get why he have to make a fake beard. As someone upthread said, there a shiat ton of women on campus that would go out with him just because he's johnny football hero. Hes supposed to be a devout mormon so he can play the celibacy card and doesnt even have to fake the actual romance part of it. He may have to kiss the icky girl every now and then but that would be about it I think. This would work out much better because everyone would see him with the girl. It would be a lot harder to fake her death for sympathy though. That could be problematic.

Yeah? There is a big pile of reporters who would pay that family for an interview. Assuming the family actually exists. There seems to be no evidence that they do.

Sure there is: Mauia said he was introduced to Kekua by Tuiasosopo

It's clear that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo is a central figure in all of this. It's not just a coincidence that he knows Manti and this guy as well. And he's already been tied to the Twitter account of this "woman" and the person of facebook account he got the fake pictures from.

So there are a ton of questions revolving around this guy:

- Was this just a hoax he perpetrated with a female friend - an actress to fool Teo over the phone and Mauia in person?- What was their end game with the hoax? If it's financial, why did the Notre Dame AD come out and say that there was no extortion attempt and why didn't he report it to the authorities?- Is he just some troubled kid that wanted access to great football players so he could live out his failed football career vicariously through them?

That's if you take this at face value that the whole thing is a hoax that he created himself and everyone is just a victim of it. As has been stated numerous times, the Te'o family has talked about meetings in person going back to 2009 at a Stanford game, so that's obviously BS. Is it just a bullshiat story made up by Te'o to hide the fact that he only had some ridiculous online relationship going on and wanted to make it sound real to his family? Or is there something more he's trying to cover up there? I'd say the latter.

And I don't buy into the whole doing it for publicity bit at all. Te'o was the #1 linebacker coming out of college, he'd been a very good NFL player, and he had plenty of NFL buzz last year. Notre Dame going 12-0 would've automatically boosted his profile anyways since he was the best player and leader of the defense.

OK here's my problem. This morning on Sportscenter they talked to the reporter who wrote the story. He admitted he couldn't find a story about her dying, couldn't find a death notice, couldn't find an obituary, Te'o wouldn't let him see a photo of her, and wouldn't let him contact her family - and he went with the story anyway. Why isn't anyone calling him out for being a bad farking journalist?

Lost Thought 00:If this lasted a month, maybe 2 months, I could see him just being duped. But several years? No way in hell

Exactly.

Let's say Mauia is right, and there is some woman out there scamming these Samoan football players...or even the Tuiososopa kid is involved in it. This went on for 4 years. At some point, you have to wonder where the "relationship" was heading, right? So either Te'o knew at some point it was a hoax, and ran with it, or he was just flat out dubbed for 4 years...which makes him the meme of all memes.

But I still stick with my initial thought, the gay guy creating an online beard for his family, and it gets out of control.

ExperianScaresCthulhu:I think this is sweet and inevitable. It only took 20, 25 years of internet usage within the general population before the media publically shammed a celebrity for being scammed by a fake boyfriend/fake girlfriend. Of course, money is involved.

Dude's a dupe, a victim.

So what should the legal punishment be for faking an online persona in order to fake a relationship with a dupe? or faking an online persona in order to get cash and gifts? or faking an online persona in order to scam charity money from others?

Your point operates on the premise that he was the most naive and stupid person on the planet. Four years and he never met her in person (Wait, he claimed that he did)? Skyped? "Duped" his father and former teammates into believing that she was real? If he knew her for four years, why didn't he go to her funeral, talk to her family, etc.?

I agree with the person in the last thread that cited Occam's Razor. He's gay, and this gave him a convenient excuse to ignore everything that was thrown his way (and garner sympathy votes in the process). The media seems to be trying their damnedest to turn Te'O into a victim of some nasty prankster (again, for FOUR FARKING YEARS), but I don't buy it.

Lunchlady:desertgeek: Now a former teammate says Te'o liked the attention.

The teammate portrayed the move as part of the All-American's personality, telling ESPN that Te'o liked attention so much that he would sometimes point himself out to friends when he was on television.

I think that if Te'o was involved (and it would be quite an upset if he wasn't), this may put "being an attention whore" has a slight favorite over "hiding his sexuality" in the motive for this hoax.

/Of course, it could always be C) All of the above

That's what I figured as well. Why else would he "kill" his girlfriend right after his grandmother?

That is EXACTLY why I am prone to believe he was not part of that part of it. I believe at some point he found out and continued to lie about it, but that would be such a disrespect to his grandmother's memory if he decided to throw in a fake dead girl that day too.

Not saying in the end he wasn't involved but that is the one key that leans me to think he found out later and was genuinely duped but then continued to play it up.

What this story demonstrates above all is the total gullibility of the media. Whether it be sport, politics, business, economics, or entertainment reporters these days DO NOT investigate or question the source. They simply parrot whatever they are told.

The guy was a jock, the big man on campus. Co-eds were throwing themselves at his feet yet he was content with a girlfriend whom he never met in the flesh. What jock do you know who is satisfied with an online relationship under those circumstances? I'm leaning towards a very closeted Mormon at a homophobic Catholic college. Its a double whammy and he won't come clean today or ever.

Ow! That was my feelings!:I don't get why people think this makes him gay. Why wouldn't he just get a beard? More likely this whole thing started small, got out of hand and he didn't know how to get out of it, so he 'killed' her off. Weird.

His being gay seemed like a reasonable explanation to an unreasonable set of facts (at least, at first). But the more I think about it, the less sense it seems to make. For instance, he could have found a nice, observant Mormon girl who adhered strictly to chastity before marriage, and she needn't even know, thus eliminating the risks from having a beard who might out him as well as questions about the lack of sex. (Of course, he may simply be too nice a guy to deceive a girl like that.)

But frankly, nothing about this story makes much sense, and the more details that come out, the less sense it makes. For example, none of the proposed explanations account for the fact that his imaginary dead girlfriend later developed an imaginary sister. How does that help anything in any of these scenarios?

Maybe Ronaiah Tuiasosopo had a desperate need to be close to college football stars, so he used a female proxy? Maybe he was jealous of Te'o and his football career, and this whole thing was set up to humiliate him? Beats me; but the more details we learn, the more the glib "he's gay" explanation seems to lose its appeal.

Anyone else look at Tuiososopo's pic in the earlier Deadspin article and think he looks rather slender and effeminate? Neither Te'o or Mauia have claimed to check 'Lennay' under the hood, so to speak. Could be that the guy dressed up as a woman and fooled both of them, wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened.

Well, I saw some of it on Twitter last night. I assume it is what they speak of.

Link

Take from that what you want.

Well that's interesting.

Now there is this...

Link

person behind LennayKay acct claims they are going to release a statement around 11AM...they do not mention a time zone.

Okay, this is my tinfoil hat prediction.... Tuiasosopo and Teo were in on it the whole time. Now that they've been exposed, the fake Lennay (Tuiasosopo) will say that Te'o was innocent and a victim of the hoax in order to protect Te'o.

For those wondering why he doesn't just come out, he's an Hawaiian mormon, who are (at least generally) very sheltered and conservative, and is going to the school that hasn't let a LGBT group form for 20 years, and now they are letting it form, they are forcing the group to promote chastity.

Add in to the fact that his dad probably didn't want to believe his star football son was gay, I can understand why he created the girlfriend (though the car accident/cancer part was not smart)

----------

I'm an agnostic, so this is no defense of the Mormon or Catholic faith, but your entire premise here is, well, to be nice, "off base".

Mormons and Catholics promote chastity for heterosexuals, as well. The statement that they are "forcing" the LGBT group to "promote chastity" is in line with their religious beliefs for all of their members/students, not just teh ghey ones. As a matter of fact, it just so happens to be a tenet of MANY religions. No sex before marriage. They ask the LGBT group to adhere to those same tenets if they wish to attend the same school? The horror! Why do you have a problem with this? Do you believe LGBT have some promiscuity gene that unfairly disadvantages them from adhering to the same tenets? LGBTers are less capable of being chaste than a heterosexual person? That sounds a little prejudiced! Do you have something against LGBTers?

I don't agree with the whole chastity notion, myself, but I sure don't see a problem with "forcing" (sounds so evil) the LGBT group to follow the same rules as the rest of the school population, with regard to the religious doctrine. When they graduate and move to California or some other state that allows same-sex marriages, they can get married and have teh sex, or promote "non-chastity" in any forms they wish. But, the horror that you are implying? Meh.

Is it a shame that LGBTers can't get married in ANY state? Or, that it took 20 years for the group to be allowed to form? Sure. I could grant you those. But that they are now being persecuted because they have to follow the same tenets as the rest of the school population? Um. No. They're not kicking them out of the school because they are LGBT, mind you, but you can't go to Notre Dame and then have a gay pride soft-core porn parade out on the square, or otherwise promote promiscuity. Not what you signed up for. That is allowed other places, go there and promote "non-chastity" there. There are many places where it is tolerated and even welcomed. Notre Dame isn't one. Notre Dame doesn't allow promotion of "non-chastity" anywhere on campus by any heterosexual group.

Now that I explain your argument, you probably realize how silly it sounds. You probably didn't mean to say that, right? Probably should have left that part out of the argument, right?

Now, that that is out of the way, I would be VERY surprised if this was done at all because Manti is gay. It looks, though, entirely as he was "in on it". Someone attempted to use Occam's Razor to justify that he is gay, but for that to be true, for Occam, this would have to be the most likely excuse, which it is not.

Serial dating - none ever getting "serious", using the chastity cloak of his religion, a Hollywood Beard etc. Those are FAR more likely methods for concealing one's homosexuality. A complex internet ruse that draws a lot of attention to your sexuality is probably not the simplest explanation.

IAmRight:Incorrigible Astronaut: That might be the case, but would you want to live with that in the hyper-masculine culture of an NFL locker room

I think NFL players care about it a lot less than people think they do. Most already are aware that they probably have gay teammates.

Than why hasn't it happened yet?

I don't mean to be the white knight brigade of that movement on Fark- I'm just putting pieces together between a lot of contradictory statements, and this makes too much sense for it not to be brought up as a talking point. I hope that it comes down to "he was naive," but there are far more things contradicting that. Maybe he had a girlfriend that somebody didn't approve of, then broke up with her, and his friends are covering for him. To tie this back to the sports world, how will this affect the guy's draft status?

ha-ha-guy:CADMonkey79: ha-ha-guy: CADMonkey79: DamnYankees: IAmRight: I just find it really odd that everyone always wants to believe the star football player is gay (prior to this, it was Tebow).

In this case, we want to believe that because its the most charitable reading of events.

Good point. But like others have said, wouldn't just finding a "fake" girlfriend on campus be a lot easier?

If the Ronnie guy was his BF though, this lets them flirt on Twitter and all that crap since Ronne controlled the Lennie account.

True, but that is a lot of risk to take just to flirt in public.

It also gives him a cover story for stopping off in Cali on his way to and from Hawaii (or even just over break). I agree it isn't the most foolproof way to do this, but isn't way out of left field given some of the benefits you get from it. This might have been the best a pair of semi intelligent Mormons could come up with or they had enough hubris to think they could make it work, without thinking of long term issues like when ESPN wants to do a puff piece on his GF.

The other thing is lets him use some of the details from his gay relationship. Like he can say he went to some beach in Cali or whatever, he just has to remember to say he took Lenny not Ronnie. Or the whole thing started as a knee jerk because some girl hit on Te'o, the first thing that came to mind was "I have a SO in California" and then he was stuck with the lie, etc.

Whatever the outcome of this story and whatever the reason behind the hoax, can we all finally agree that ESPN is an absolute joke that should never be taken seriously as a legitimate source for sports news ever again?

ExperianScaresCthulhu:coolio mack:And I don't buy into the whole doing it for publicity bit at all. Te'o was the #1 linebacker coming out of college, he'd been a very good NFL player, and he had plenty of NFL buzz last year. Notre Dame going 12-0 would've automatically boosted his profile anyways since he was the best player and leader of the defense.

It's not Manti who's the issue here. Like you pointed out above who the real central figure is... just gotta figure out his angle.- Troll job? (any number of dudes at who put the lulz before anything else)- Revenge plot? (Mhissy)- Just bored and it was interesting to keep it going? (any number of women who use their daughter's high school photos to trawl horny men on adult dating sites)- Money, gifts, notoriety and feeling loved/important? (the Total Farker who fled to Reddit)

A dude scamming another dude doesn't mean that the second dude is gay. Just means the second dude got duped. It was real to Manti, dammit. And yeah, this started out as Manti being duped and being completely innocent.

I hope he didn't run with it, though.

I don't really want to run to the whole gay angle yet either, but the thing that just doesn't look good for Manti was the ESPN interview when he said he talked to her everyday for four months straight until he falls asleep, only to wake up and find they had an eight hour call and he could hear her breathing on the other end. I mean, I could see the long con troll angle of this if they talked like once a week or something and it wasn't this intimate type relationship Te'o made it out to be in the media. But that's just way too much effort in trolling this guy with no end game (again, no extortion attempt claimed by the AD).

So at the very least for this to make sense as Te'o as the complete victim with no knowledge of this, Tuiasosopo had to hire or bring in a female to play Manti's girlfriend for 30-50 hours a week, he had to manage a cell phone to text other family members of the Te'o family along with Manti, and he had to bring in other people to play the different roles of brother and mother of the girl.

Additionally, Manti had to lie to his family in saying that he met her at a Stanford game and on visits to Hawaii when he alone would be there to greet her (in order to cover up falling for this girl online and seeming more normal?). But that already disputes some of the info that the Notre Dame AD said in his presser yesterday. He said Manti confirmed to him that they had met online sometime back in 2009, but that it was online.

My conspiracy theory take from it - Manti makes up a girlfriend his freshman year in college, gets people off his back (family, teammates, students) for whatever reason. Really easy to say your girlfriend is out of the state. The social media stuff is all for show with help from Tuiasosopo, and there's a third party girl involved to talk to teammates and keep the thing going for Te'o. Rides the whole thing through Notre Dame, pressure rises that the family has to meet her eventually (the family stated Senior Day was the initial plan), he knows he has to kill off the story. Car accident/Leukemia gets baked up. Manti has to play along in the media as the story starts spreading. In return for his help, Tuiasosopo gets support for his fledgling music career, and some cash and connections once Manti gets to the NFL.

Well, it's possible he met SOMEone who was supposedly the person behind the accounts.

/seriously, wtf is "Catfish" and why the hell have so many people heard of it?//I mean, I looked it up...I just want to know why anyone who knows anything about football would also have a connection with that

SlothB77:DamnYankees: Also, the idea he's a dupe is just not plausible. We live in the age of Skype and Facetime. He never did a video chat with this person? Please.

We know many football players aren't that bright, but I wonder what his grades were at Notre Dame. For non-football players, the academics there are rigorous. Like, can the kid get a 3.0 at Notre Dame, but not figure out his g/f isn't real? That doesn't compute with me.

There are plenty of smart people that get taken like this. I'm not saying he is one of them, but it isn't that uncommon. Getting taken like this often has more to do with naivety than with smarts.

Only problem with this is that Manti, his father, and the university all claimed more than once and on separate occasions that Manti and his "girlfriend" had frequently met each other and spent time together in person. It's pretty clear that he was in on the whole sham on some level.

Swoop1809:Can he just come out and tell us he's gay? We are far more accepting of that than someone having a creepy fake dead girlfriend. It's ok to be gay, Manti. We won't love you any less. You dont have to double down

If he were gay, there are plenty of rent-a-beards out there. Why fall in love with a fake persona, and establish a long distance relationship with them? Why not fall for any of the fake (and real) gay personas out there instead?

Dude established a new millenium relationship online. Media only gives a fark because a charity and the heisman competition are involved. I still say he got duped, just like a lot of people.

Can he just come out and tell us he's gay? We are far more accepting of that than someone having a creepy fake dead girlfriend. It's ok to be gay, Manti. We won't love you any less. You dont have to double down

HideAndGoFarkYourself:Your problem with him seems to be that he's got a pretty sweet life for a 20 year old, one that you and I did not enjoy, and hating on him for scoring some sweet courtside, all while pulling tail we farkers only wank about.

Keep reading into sh*t. Yeesh. I don't mind that he does all that. I'm just saying that the media ran with whatever they wanted to about his story and made him into something he wasn't. You're making up everything else. When you stop acting as though athletes are different from other people in significant ways, you'll eventually not end up with situations like Te'o's, where everyone buys into the narrative and even gives a sh*t about this dumbass story.

HideAndGoFarkYourself:rynthetyn: HideAndGoFarkYourself: Manziel graduated High School in 2011, and began at A&M in the fall of that year as a Freshman, he did not play. In 2012 he played, as a redshirt freshman. He's not "hours wise" a Junior. He's a Sophomore by class, and a Redshirt Freshman by playing eligibility. He didn't turn 20 until December, so he's actually relatively young for a college Sophomore.

How is turning 20 in December of your sophomore year relatively young for a sophomore? I worked a year between high school and college and still didn't turn 20 until I was in my sophomore year. Turning 20 as a sophomore is somewhere between average and old for a sophomore.

I'm working simply off the sampling of people from my collegiate experience, where sophomores were all turning 20 either over the summer, or early in their sophomore years. A sampling of the A&M line-up shows that Manziel is one of the younger sophomores on the team as well.

Fwiw, while I fully understand the implications of redshirt vs. true freshman/sophomore (so no argument there), turning 20 in your sophomore year seems unusual to me. However, it can probably be explained by grade school admittance cut-off dates. I went to school in NB, which drew the line on Dec. 31st, whereas a friend I met in university went to school in NS, where the cutoff was August 31st. So, while neither of us skipped ahead or fell back, our birthdays (1 year + 2 days apart in November), made us 19 and 20, respectively, in sophomore year.

So, that's probably what happened with Johnny Football. Makes sense, too, as most non-freak-of-nature pro athletes are born in the first few months after the cutoff dates, as per Freakonomics (since they end up more physically mature/developed come tryout time, so they get more coaching attention).

If he is gay, this should serve as a reminder to us all of just how brave Jackie Robinson really was. Not everybody is cut from that same cloth. Just because he's a great athlete who may happen to be gay, doesn't mean he's ready or willing to deal with all the massive amounts of irrelevant bullshiat that the eventual Pioneer Outwardly Gay Star Male Athlete will have to deal with.

Whoever POGSMA is, he will instantly be thrust into a position of having to be a voice of gay America, likely for life. He simply won't have the option of living even a remotely "normal" life. And to take on all that extra baggage while trying to stay on a pro team AND produce at a star level.

Chris Kluwe gets bullshiat from national sportswriters after shanking a couple of punts because he wrote some tweets and emails suggesting that gay people should be able to get married. If he came out as gay, Te'o would get, what, a thousand times more scrutiny? It's certainly enough to make The Closet look a lot more appealing.

Jackie, of course, never had that choice. But went for it anyways. Because he's a hero.

HideAndGoFarkYourself:How is A&M's policy of not allowing first year players to speak to the media an issue?

It's not; it just enabled the media to fabricate a backstory and legend of the guy before ever actually talking to him or seeing him in real life. And that backstory and mystique is as bullsh*t as Te'o's girlfriend. Manziel is a typical dumbass 20-year-old who happens to be really elusive on a football field.

AdamK:CADMonkey79: Everyone needs to read the deadspin article....they broke this story. No way you can come away from that feeling he wasn't involved. A few things I have seen mentioned elsewhere. Even if he didn't go to her funeral because she asked him not to, why would have not talked to her family or gone to her grave site after the game? That was supposedly in September, she was the love of his life. Supposedly he sent white roses to her funeral, does he have a receipt, did the floral company not call him back and says there is no funeral to take this to?

you have to read the sports illustrated article too, blows his official response out of the water

that none of his teammates believed this "person" was his girlfriend, and that he was just using the story because he loves attention and wanted publicity? i mean that's pretty damning by itself, much less the whole fake person

What should have raised massive red flags for the SI reporter was that he didn't go to her when they "were going to pull the plug" after the car accident. He claimed that he was flying home from South Bend to Hawaii for summer break at the time they were going to pull the plug. That part of the story in and of itself makes so little sense that they should have started questioning what the deal was.

And that part of the story, in and of itself, makes me think he wasn't duped. If it's a person you love that much and you know you have one chance to see her before she dies, you're on the plane to California, not going back to Hawaii for summer break.

ATRDCI:IAmRight: Incorrigible Astronaut: it's interesting that this is where the "real journalism" is coming from.

And as a PR person I find it funny that BOTH of the top Heisman finalists were helped dramatically by complete bullsh*t stories that had nothing to do with their production on the field.

I'm not saying that neither deserved to be there, I'd just remind people that Manziel wasn't allowed to talk to the press while A&M created a whole image for him that also seems to be BS. Te'o was allowed to talk to the press apparently with a made-up story.

/also, never even heard of Te'o's story before this either//it's amazing how much bullsh*t you escape when you don't watch ESPN or other crap sports programming that gives you zero information about sports and 100% fabricated crap to "humanize" the athletes

The only really misleading thing about Manziel was that announcers kept calling him a redshirt freshman, while hours-wise he is actually a junior

/hell the family had to take control of the "story" so that there wouldn't be NCAA violations because somebody sold Johnny Football Tshirts or something like that

Manziel graduated High School in 2011, and began at A&M in the fall of that year as a Freshman, he did not play. In 2012 he played, as a redshirt freshman. He's not "hours wise" a Junior. He's a Sophomore by class, and a Redshirt Freshman by playing eligibility. He didn't turn 20 until December, so he's actually relatively young for a college Sophomore.

How is A&M's policy of not allowing first year players to speak to the media an issue? I happen to think it's a wonderful idea not to give 18-19 year old kids a microphone and free license to use it to say whetever dumb thing they want. They should sit back and watch the 5th year seniors talk to the media and learn.

xaks:So now that I've read all 460-some-odd posts on this thread, and seen it mentioned in numerous places with almost no idea what the hell is going on...

What's the cliff's notes version? I mean, what actually happened that kicked this entire bullshiat storyline off in the first place?

As far as I've been able to tell, "nothing".

Last week Deadspin received an email from a female saying the Te'o story was a fraud. They sat on it for a few days, and then after looking in to it, found it out there were no records of the girl, then they compiled a timeline of everything, while researching the Twitter acct.

The All-Powerful Atheismo:I don't farking get it. I just woke up to this story an hour ago. They're saying she's fake, but people say they know she's real... wtf? Anybody know anything more?

IMHbuttrustingstupidO the friend and this chick conned the naive football player into believing the girlfriend was real. Then faked death to get out if it.

I've seen that crap happen on FARK. By AWs that didn't die but "went to jail" and came back as totally different people just to get ego boosts or cash and prizes. Some of the dudes here totally fell for it and continue to just to get boobies in their email. You can rationalize a lot for boobies.

I have an entirely new theory. Are you ready for it? This is mind blowing. Manti Te'o and the guy who ran the fake girlfriend internet image were gay lovers. To stop people from asking about his lack of a girlfriend at college, they set up the fake person. Then when it started to get noticed, and people started getting interested in her, they had to kill her off. It just got out of hand.

I don't think it makes him gay, but it's one logical explanation and it serves a purpose, that purpose being self-preservation.

We don't know just yet, as this story will continue to evolve.

Maybe the bigger story (aside from the rape scandal, which I have now posted about three times) is how that it took the sports media over five months to break it and how ESPN is almost to the point where they are to sports what MTV is to music.

I don't get why people think this makes him gay. Why wouldn't he just get a beard? More likely this whole thing started small, got out of hand and he didn't know how to get out of it, so he 'killed' her off. Weird.

Their stares got pleasantly tangled, then Manti Te'o extended his hand to the stranger with a warm smile and soulful eyes. They could have just as easily brushed past each other and into separate sunsets.

Lennay Kekua was a Stanford student and Cardinal football fan when the two exchanged glances, handshakes and phone numbers that fateful weekend three seasons ago.

"They started out as just friends," Brian Te'o said. "Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there. But within the last year, they became a couple.

No father talks that way about some girl his son has only chatted with online. Daddy has got to be in on it too.

It's possible, but, as others have pointed out, it would be much easier to have his pick of hotties who would date him while maintaining his moral code.

It's way easier to believe he got scammed, realized it at an early point, then kept the lie going because of all the pub, pressure from ND, and all the sympathy he could reap come awards time.

I think your scenario is the most likely, however it's not a popular theory because it doesn't make him look like a total idiot or a total scumbag. I still think it's an absolute joke that he won any award over Jarvis Jones

Donnchadha:CADMonkey79: Yay everybody, its the guy who likes to shame everyone for having a fun discussion speculating on the circumstances of a really bizarre story.

I'm not saying you can't hypothesize, but just make sure that your hypothesis actually fits the data instead of coming up with a conclusion, cherry picking reports that support your idea and then claiming that contrary reports are inaccurate journalism or ESPN trying to squelch the story and you know the REAL truth that the media isn't reporting.

I don't think anyone is going to take it quite that seriously. We are just losers in a fark thread, not journalists. I think people are so interested because we all got duped as part of the hoax.

Maybe the chick whose pictures were used, including one she mailed to Tuiososopa herself with a handwritten sign is the picture) was in on it. She did concede T. was an old friend she knew from high school years. If she hung out with T. she could have been in on it. On the other hand, this "sighting" might have been more just that instead of a meeting, with T. making up a new backstory for her all by himself.

rynthetyn:The chastity thing is different when it's LGBT students than with straight students. The LGBT students aren't allowed to consider the possibility of ever getting in a committed relationship some day--chastity, as taught to LGBT students means never having any kind of sexual or even romantic contact with someone they're attracted to, not for their entire life. For straight students, chastity is a temporary thing until marriage, and marriage is the goal. Gay kids are expected to live like monks their entire lives.

I went to a religious college where pre-marital sex was a student conduct violation. It's a completely different ball of wax for gay students than straight students. Straight students get the message that sex is great, just not yet, Gay students get the message that sex is bad and should not happen ever.

From a Catholic standpoint, chastity is not temporary until marriage. There are still rules dictating chastity within marriage which is where you get all the weird rules about Catholic sex. You do not get carte blanche to all sexual relations just because you're married -- no contraceptives, husband must "finish" inside the wife (in the right hole too), no masturbation or other forms of fornication, etc.. Chastity is not about "not having sex" but "not having immoral sex". For single people or gay people there is no moral sex, so chastity = no sex at all.

"They started out as just friends," Brian Te'o said. "Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there. But within the last year, they became a couple. "And we came to the realization that she could be our daughter-in-law. Sadly, it won't happen now."

This quote from the father points to Manti (family) being in on it or his father just making sh*t up. Someone suggested maybe one of the other people told the father she had been to hawaii and somehow Manti never confirmed or denied that to his father? really?

KingsleyZisou:ongbok: KingsleyZisou: ongbok: NaziKamikaze: At least Johnny Manziel won the Heisman. Imagine the voting if this bullshiat wasn't always in the air.

Hell, since it's obvious he was compliant in this, he should be vacated from the list of eligible recipients.

That is one reason why I think this was a marketing scheme setup by either ND, an agent or a booster to raise Teo's Heisman stock. Also if this was just Teo doing this himself without the school's knowledge, I don't think they would be sticking with him through all of this especially with this thing getting sillier and sillier by the minute. ND is part of this hoax and they are trying to keep it from coming out.

I too don't understand ND's motivation to support Teo. If he is a fraud, throw him under the bus and protect the institution. I however don't think the school is "in on it." What would they have to gain from such a scheme? Maybe publicity from the Heisman campaign but that only happened in year 4 of this charade.

I think Teo had convinced the administration that he is a victim. Pathological liars will spin any situation to suit their needs. They are very good at convincing people. Just my theory though.

/this while thing is hilarious//Catfish and Lance Armstrong are doing backflips with joy today

Or he may have been really scammed by someone. And if he was it probably involved him sending them money. It could have been somebody that befriended him on Facebook or whatever and used his naivety to lead him on and con him into sending them money over the years.Then decided to go for the big score and threatened to expose the whole thing if he didn't pat up. This has been known to happen.

Sorry but I don't buy the Te'o is a victim angle. He goes to great length to keep this scam going. If he's a victim why would he do that? Once the jig is up on the scam, he can get help. What incentive does he have to perpetuate it other than the original extortion? Hell he should be sabotaging it. Instead, he helps keep it rolling along.

He has a preexisting relationship with the perp. Does that mean Manti was an easy mark? That's possible. It's also possible they corroborated.

Who blackmails a college student? Even a future pro athlete is currently poor. A scam with less effort on a better target would yield more immediate results.

Sorry but too much of this sorry points to Manti for him to be a victim.

You scam whoever is willing to send you money. People will run scams and extortion schemes on welfare recipients. If he did get scammed, whoever did it could have tried to contact dozens of different pro and college football players, Teo was just the one that responded and got caught in the web.

And why would he keep it going? Maybe because he wanted to believe it was true and that someday she would really be his girlfriend. You ever see those Nigerian scams where they get people to continuously send them money, even though the person hasn't seen any money in return and have been told by their bank that they are getting scammed, all because the person wants to believe that the lie they were told will become true? People can build up a fantasy when they are getting scammed and it can be hard for them to let that go even though they know it is a scam.

Also the reason why he kept it going after he and ND claims to have known it was a scam could be if any type of extortion was involved, the police may have gotten involved and they wanted him to keep it going.

This is if it was a scam. Personally I think it may have been some type of real correspondence between him and some girl that didn't amount to much and fizzled out, that he, and probably either ND or an agent, decided to use to create a whole fake story for PR reasons.

Plans to meet, but then changes and excuses from the girl at the last minute.

Tragedy after tragedy, incremental and encroaching suspension of disbelief, incident after incident.

Oh, and look. There's a 'twin brother' who spent time talking with Te'o's family. Why yes, we sound alike on the phone, sorry about that.

I'll bet we'll find out that the 'twin brother' is the one who told Te'o's parents that Te'o and the girlfriend had actually met a few times.

And the reason the media is now trying to portray Te'o as a perpetrator of the hoax is because some of them added their own spin without checking their facts and they're interested in covering their own rear ends at the expense of this young man.

Killer Cars:srhp29: I think he was duped. I also think he did a lot of lying for some reason. He claimed to have met her multiple times which we now know he did not. He also pretty much admitted he never met her, yesterday.

Well, the lying part may have been out of mild embarrassment; it might be hard for a big bad football player to admit to people he has a super goddamn "i wanna marry this girl" crush on a glorified pen pal.

Yeah, that was a thought I have had too. He didn't want to go around saying he never met this girl he is in love with after three years.

halfof33:"Thirdly, our investigators through their work were able to discover online chatter among the perpetrators that is sort of the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking, the sort of casualness with which among themselves they were referring to what they had accomplished and what they had done."

Whoever finds this first is going to be Internet famous.

I think you are grossly overestimating the Internet's interest in this.

srhp29:I think he was duped. I also think he did a lot of lying for some reason. He claimed to have met her multiple times which we now know he did not. He also pretty much admitted he never met her, yesterday.

Well, the lying part may have been out of mild embarrassment; it might be hard for a big bad football player to admit to people he has a super goddamn "i wanna marry this girl" crush on a glorified pen pal.

Masifilo, who played at Stanford from 2007-2011 and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in November, claims Te'o was always asking Stanford players if they knew his mystery girlfriend.

I think he was duped. I also think he did a lot of lying for some reason. He claimed to have met her multiple times which we now know he did not. He also pretty much admitted he never met her, yesterday.

ATRDCI:/tbh, not that big a deal, the reason I brought it up is that while he wasn't allowed to talk to the media, there really has been zero story building by the university in regards to him

The story building is done by the media, which is helped by not having the QB act like a typical dumbsh*t 20-year-old. So everyone runs with the "Johnny Football" crap and all the old-school imagery it evokes while never hearing the dumbsh*t stuff he does on Twitter and how he's going to NBA games courtside, going to casinos and flashing money all over the place, etc. (All of which is legal, BTW, but it's nowhere near the image they made of the guy).

muwaryer:I get where you're coming from...but this one is going to be very easy to prove/disprove. It would be a colossal mistake for ND to double down on this one unless they are 100% sure. I'm not saying that they're right -- Te'o may have duped them too -- but I do think they're convinced that they're right.

Maybe. I've just seen enough unforced errors from people and institutions in the sport that should have known better. After Sandusky, nothing really surprises me any more.

And as a PR person I find it funny that BOTH of the top Heisman finalists were helped dramatically by complete bullsh*t stories that had nothing to do with their production on the field.

I'm not saying that neither deserved to be there, I'd just remind people that Manziel wasn't allowed to talk to the press while A&M created a whole image for him that also seems to be BS. Te'o was allowed to talk to the press apparently with a made-up story.

/also, never even heard of Te'o's story before this either//it's amazing how much bullsh*t you escape when you don't watch ESPN or other crap sports programming that gives you zero information about sports and 100% fabricated crap to "humanize" the athletes

The only really misleading thing about Manziel was that announcers kept calling him a redshirt freshman, while hours-wise he is actually a junior

/hell the family had to take control of the "story" so that there wouldn't be NCAA violations because somebody sold Johnny Football Tshirts or something like that

Redshirt freshman refers to the fact that he redshirted during his first year of college. Manziel this year played during his first year of eligibility (his second year in college). Next year he'll be a redshirt sophomore, which means he's been with the program for three years but will be playing in just his sophomore year of eligibility. Two years from now, assuming he doesn't go to the NFL, he'll be a fifth-year senior and will exhaust his eligibility.

Yes, I am aware. My point was that the only "built story" around Manziel, other than the nickname, was slightly misleading terminology when regarding him as a freshman

It's not misleading at all to people who know what the term means. He's a first-year player. He and a true freshman, before this year, had the exact same playing time experience - none. It's the first time a f ...

Yeah, I understand that, and its more a personal hang up than anything that's actually significant. Its just to me, even though he doesn't have the experience, he still had the workouts/body development, that a junior has. I mean, take the Europeans drafted in the NBA. You'd expect a 25 year old whose been playing in Euro leagues for say 5 years to do better than a 21 year old from St John's even though they are both rookes because the european has had more time to develop his body

/tbh, not that big a deal, the reason I brought it up is that while he wasn't allowed to talk to the media, there really has been zero story building by the university in regards to him//I'll try to stop thread jacking

ATRDCI:Yes, I am aware. My point was that the only "built story" around Manziel, other than the nickname, was slightly misleading terminology when regarding him as a freshman

"After Johnny Manziel's first media appearance, Joe Posnanski wrote a gushing essay on the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner, dripping with the nostalgia evoked by a nickname like "Johnny Football." After he talked about how refreshing it was that Manziel's long media silence spared him from overexposure, you couldn't tell if Posnanski was talking about Manziel or Mickey Mantle. He lamented how they don't make 'em like they used to -- even placing scrambling quarterbacks in that category, as if no one's told him about MACtion -- before becoming enthralled by the "aww shucks" aesthetic accompanied by things like Manziel's modest statement that he didn't "see [himself] as Johnny Football."

Well, here's the other thing about that media silence -- it allowed people like Posnanski to create the "Johnny Football" of their dreams. Truth is, the real Johnny Manziel is out here flashing the money he won at a casino on Twitter. He might sip champagne here and there. He sits courtside at NBA games, and when people have a problem with any of it, he either tells them to keep hating or stop. He doesn't seem to give a damn either way, but he's not stopping because they don't like it. Johnny Manziel wants to ball. Not just on the field, but in his life. He retweets 50 Cent lyrics to reinforce this. Oh, and he goes back and forth with Larry Fitzgerald, Bubba Watson and some guys I'm told I should be aware of." Full article with links here.

Peter King @SI_PeterKingRT @slacker_mike: Why did major outlets like SI, ESPN not identify this with fact checking?

In fairness, I can probably understand taking people at their word for it if there's a whole family talking about how they knew this person. Most of the time you're not going to assume they're lying and go check for a death certificate. If it were for a book, sure. For a random article or a brief mention on TV? Let's not assume reporters have all f*cking day to work on just one story.

The scandal isn't going to be why they didn't fact check the story before the hoax was revealed. The scandal is going to be why they didn't report on it until their hand was forced by a blog.

It's pretty obvious, if not a factual certainty at this point, that this story was deliberately spiked by some members of the media

halfof33:"Thirdly, our investigators through their work were able to discover online chatter among the perpetrators that is sort of the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking, the sort of casualness with which among themselves they were referring to what they had accomplished and what they had done."

Whoever finds this first is going to be Internet famous.

What happened to the power of Fark?

More likely that this "online chatter" doesn't exist. ND has already said that they aren't going to release the "internal findings." Like I said above, it sounds to me like they believe they've closed the loop.Of course, I could be wrong about this. I'm certainly engaging in some conjecture myself.

"Thirdly, our investigators through their work were able to discover online chatter among the perpetrators that is sort of the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking, the sort of casualness with which among themselves they were referring to what they had accomplished and what they had done."

Yeah, the two NFL who met her are Samoan and the claim is they met her way out at American Samoa IIRC, not in Cali. The Arizona guy and the AZ guy says Polamalu also met her. It will be interesting to see if Troy confirms that, denies that, or just stays the hell away from all this.

ATRDCI:El Uno Magnifico: ATRDCI: IAmRight: Incorrigible Astronaut: it's interesting that this is where the "real journalism" is coming from.

And as a PR person I find it funny that BOTH of the top Heisman finalists were helped dramatically by complete bullsh*t stories that had nothing to do with their production on the field.

I'm not saying that neither deserved to be there, I'd just remind people that Manziel wasn't allowed to talk to the press while A&M created a whole image for him that also seems to be BS. Te'o was allowed to talk to the press apparently with a made-up story.

/also, never even heard of Te'o's story before this either//it's amazing how much bullsh*t you escape when you don't watch ESPN or other crap sports programming that gives you zero information about sports and 100% fabricated crap to "humanize" the athletes

The only really misleading thing about Manziel was that announcers kept calling him a redshirt freshman, while hours-wise he is actually a junior

/hell the family had to take control of the "story" so that there wouldn't be NCAA violations because somebody sold Johnny Football Tshirts or something like that

Redshirt freshman refers to the fact that he redshirted during his first year of college. Manziel this year played during his first year of eligibility (his second year in college). Next year he'll be a redshirt sophomore, which means he's been with the program for three years but will be playing in just his sophomore year of eligibility. Two years from now, assuming he doesn't go to the NFL, he'll be a fifth-year senior and will exhaust his eligibility.

Yes, I am aware. My point was that the only "built story" around Manziel, other than the nickname, was slightly misleading terminology when regarding him as a freshman

It's not misleading at all to people who know what the term means. He's a first-year player. He and a true freshman, before this year, had the exact same playing time experience - none. It's the first time a first-year player has won the Heisman in history - that's pretty remarkable.

Peter King @SI_PeterKingRT @slacker_mike: Why did major outlets like SI, ESPN not identify this with fact checking?

In fairness, I can probably understand taking people at their word for it if there's a whole family talking about how they knew this person. Most of the time you're not going to assume they're lying and go check for a death certificate. If it were for a book, sure. For a random article or a brief mention on TV? Let's not assume reporters have all f*cking day to work on just one story.

ha-ha-guy:CADMonkey79: Plausible, but how would the NFL guys claiming to know her fit?

That's definitely one issue. I heard one theory about the Ronnie boy being a jock sniffer and he might have used a faux girl on the NFL guy or something (maybe he actually was able to get a girl to act for him there). That said, personally I lean in the direction of gay coverup, but I see why others could lean in other ways. I assume sooner or later Deadspin or someone will dig up enough details to connect all the dots and explain the question marks like that NFL guy and we'll know the whole truth.

I guess that lends a little credibility to him just being duped if there are other victims from the same fake girl.

sigdiamond2000:Holy Christ. Has anyone read this Pat Forde article on this yet?

Laughter LOL out loud.

The traditional media has to astro turf this. They got suckered into this when all bought the dead gf story hook, line, and sinker. They also want to stay in ND's good graces for future program access, which means downplaying this and making everyone look like a victim of some nebulous entity not connected with ND.

CADMonkey79:Plausible, but how would the NFL guys claiming to know her fit?

That's definitely one issue. I heard one theory about the Ronnie boy being a jock sniffer and he might have used a faux girl on the NFL guy or something (maybe he actually was able to get a girl to act for him there). That said, personally I lean in the direction of gay coverup, but I see why others could lean in other ways. I assume sooner or later Deadspin or someone will dig up enough details to connect all the dots and explain the question marks like that NFL guy and we'll know the whole truth.

sigdiamond2000:So why did he continue to lie about it after he and his family allegedly told ND that it was a hoax?

I have NOT seen this. I saw one question about it after December 26, and I believe that he gave a complete non-answer and talked about his team. I would be happy to look at something more concrete and review my position.

As far as the questions about meeting her in public, it appears that there is a woman who has publicly identified herself as the girl, as noted in the linked article. I assume that he met her.

A lot of you are missing the point here. Whether he "was duped" or not isn't the question.

The question is why he continued to act like the relationship was real even after he and his family allegedly told ND it was a hoax.

My guess is it's because he didn't tell ND it was a hoax, and there was no investigation. But now they can tell people that he was instructed to play along as if the hoax was still happening on the advice of these fictional "investigators." And the NCAA and the police were never told, so I believe ND believes they've closed the loop. That's why they're going all in with Te'o.

IAmRight:Incorrigible Astronaut: it's interesting that this is where the "real journalism" is coming from.

And as a PR person I find it funny that BOTH of the top Heisman finalists were helped dramatically by complete bullsh*t stories that had nothing to do with their production on the field.

I'm not saying that neither deserved to be there, I'd just remind people that Manziel wasn't allowed to talk to the press while A&M created a whole image for him that also seems to be BS. Te'o was allowed to talk to the press apparently with a made-up story.

/also, never even heard of Te'o's story before this either//it's amazing how much bullsh*t you escape when you don't watch ESPN or other crap sports programming that gives you zero information about sports and 100% fabricated crap to "humanize" the athletes

The only really misleading thing about Manziel was that announcers kept calling him a redshirt freshman, while hours-wise he is actually a junior

/hell the family had to take control of the "story" so that there wouldn't be NCAA violations because somebody sold Johnny Football Tshirts or something like that

czetie:One scenario that seems possible is a combination of his being duped by a fake girlfriend online (for whatever reason), together with fictional elaborations made up by himself about real meetings and phone calls.

I'm leaning in this direction. My first impression was that Te'o was totally full of crap and had to be in on it. But, I can't help but notice that ND appears 100% convinced that he was duped. There was absolutely no reason for ND to unequivocally support Te'o. It would have been very easy to say that their "preliminary investigation suggests that Te'o may have been a victim of an elaborate hoax" or something along those lines. Maintain deniability. But ND's very clear statement really makes me think that they are convinced that Te'o was duped. Particularly because it's not going to be terribly difficult to prove if Te'o was involved. I also note that during the press conference, ND's AD deferred questions about the inconsistencies to Te'o -- he knows Te'o lied, and he's going to let Te'o address those questions.

IAmRight:It's also funny if he is gay, because coming out would've gotten him a hell of a lot more Heisman votes and popularity than the dead girlfriend story.

That's the only thing that could repair his image....if he comes out and say he's gay, and this was all drummed up to hide it for fear while playing a sport that's unaccepting of it, and also because of his religion, and where he played college football. But the cover up took a life of its own, and got out of hand...and he's sorry.

People will sympathize, and will forgive.

But if he comes out at sticks with being a victim of a 4 year fraud...his image will always suffer from that.

One scenario that seems possible is a combination of his being duped by a fake girlfriend online (for whatever reason), together with fictional elaborations made up by himself about real meetings and phone calls.

The latter might be to curtail increasing questions about why nobody else ever saw or heard from her; or might be pure fantasizing on his part -- fabulation, as it's sometimes called. I've known people who have fabulated elaborate stories that they stubbornly cling to even in the face of self-contradictory claims. And like Te'o, their stories often have a romantic, Hollywood air to them, not the messiness of real life (on one occasion I pointed out to somebody that she wasn't recounting her courtship, she was recycling the plot of West Side Story). All of the details that Te'o has shared -- eyes meeting across a crowded room, long late night calls, a tragic ending right out of Love Story -- are pure Hollywood. And if he is fabulating, it's not merely Making Stuff Up on the level of a Canadian girlfriend; he sincerely believes his own fiction.

ha-ha-guy:ha-ha-guy: CADMonkey79: ha-ha-guy: CADMonkey79: DamnYankees: IAmRight: I just find it really odd that everyone always wants to believe the star football player is gay (prior to this, it was Tebow).

In this case, we want to believe that because its the most charitable reading of events.

Good point. But like others have said, wouldn't just finding a "fake" girlfriend on campus be a lot easier?

If the Ronnie guy was his BF though, this lets them flirt on Twitter and all that crap since Ronne controlled the Lennie account.

True, but that is a lot of risk to take just to flirt in public.

It also gives him a cover story for stopping off in Cali on his way to and from Hawaii (or even just over break). I agree it isn't the most foolproof way to do this, but isn't way out of left field given some of the benefits you get from it. This might have been the best a pair of semi intelligent Mormons could come up with or they had enough hubris to think they could make it work, without thinking of long term issues like when ESPN wants to do a puff piece on his GF.

The other thing is lets him use some of the details from his gay relationship. Like he can say he went to some beach in Cali or whatever, he just has to remember to say he took Lenny not Ronnie. Or the whole thing started as a knee jerk because some girl hit on Te'o, the first thing that came to mind was "I have a SO in California" and then he was stuck with the lie, etc.

And as a PR person I find it funny that BOTH of the top Heisman finalists were helped dramatically by complete bullsh*t stories that had nothing to do with their production on the field.

I'm not saying that neither deserved to be there, I'd just remind people that Manziel wasn't allowed to talk to the press while A&M created a whole image for him that also seems to be BS. Te'o was allowed to talk to the press apparently with a made-up story.

/also, never even heard of Te'o's story before this either//it's amazing how much bullsh*t you escape when you don't watch ESPN or other crap sports programming that gives you zero information about sports and 100% fabricated crap to "humanize" the athletes

CADMonkey79:ha-ha-guy: CADMonkey79: DamnYankees: IAmRight: I just find it really odd that everyone always wants to believe the star football player is gay (prior to this, it was Tebow).

In this case, we want to believe that because its the most charitable reading of events.

Good point. But like others have said, wouldn't just finding a "fake" girlfriend on campus be a lot easier?

If the Ronnie guy was his BF though, this lets them flirt on Twitter and all that crap since Ronne controlled the Lennie account.

True, but that is a lot of risk to take just to flirt in public.

It also gives him a cover story for stopping off in Cali on his way to and from Hawaii (or even just over break). I agree it isn't the most foolproof way to do this, but isn't way out of left field given some of the benefits you get from it. This might have been the best a pair of semi intelligent Mormons could come up with or they had enough hubris to think they could make it work, without thinking of long term issues like when ESPN wants to do a puff piece on his GF.

He's either gay and this was how he was constructing a beard so he didn't have to live up to the expectation of being a football stud that bangs a dozen co-eds a week, or the (dumb footbal player) + (naive, believe-anything mormon) combination just created the ultimate sucker.

IAmRight:Also, if he figured it out at some point, man, that's a pretty embarrassing admission to make. But yeah, always go with the "we broke up" instead of "she's dead."

/it's disturbing that anyone cares enough to actually go digging through to look for this information

If that was the entire story, you'd be right. This is either about a guy either systematically lying to every news outlet that he could find for years (and being happy to ride the wave of sympathy that came with it), a naive top-10 NFL pick being duped by a third party for four years, or (without rehashing what I've said above) the pressures of presenting yourself as one way when you're something different. Who knew? Who went along with what? Who lied about what to protect who?

Also, as a guy with a journalism degree that's seen newspapers die a slow, painful death and stories get compromised because of the interest of a parent company (ESPN supposedly sitting on the story until Deadspin forced their hand, CNET removing a product from its Best of CES awards because CBS told them to, etc.), it's interesting that this is where the "real journalism" is coming from.

Saw it happen in real time. More than one occasion. I'm always more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to the dupes, when shiat like this comes down the pike. Unlike others, I never find that shiat funny or say that the dupe deserved it.

Despite his comments about him meeting this person (along with all of the other evidence), you still want to believe.

Folks on this thread acting like it's outside the realm of possibility, have lived in the nice parts of the internet. Must be nice. Like I said, I usually give the benefit of the doubt to the duped.

If he was that invested in what turned out to be a male acquaintance fking with him, then his saying that he missed the phone calls isn't a lie. What he is implying about those phone calls is a lie, but his saying that he missed the phone calls is not.

While the investigation was ongoing, was he given ANY guidance about how to deal with the public, and how to answer questions? If he wasn't the one who started the investigation, then his heart is going to rebel against any 'proof' unless its showstopping. If he was the one who asked for the investigation, not his family, then something else was happening. It's the difference between a woman being forced by her family to disavow her fiance, and a woman walking in on her fiance screwing her best friend.

The Tuiasosopo angle is the key. I likecoolio mack's conspiracy theory. But (because I remember the stories of the ladies who are duped by other women in real life and in bed who pretend to be men) I also say it's possible for Manti to be completely innocent this whole time, and not knowing how to deal with a quickly falling apart world.

IAmRight:I think that it's very important that we get to the bottom of a random football player's potential love life. Let's continue to make conjecture based on no knowledge whatsoever and interpret it to be what we want to believe.

I just find it really odd that everyone always wants to believe the star football player is gay (prior to this, it was Tebow).

It's almost like this story is confined to the sports tab, and the player in question used is love life as a sob story to up his votes for the most famous college football award. The reason I believe he is in the closet, along with that the facts support it, is that the alternative is he lied about the entire relationship with the purpose of getting those Heisman votes, which is just terribly scummy. Plus, they've claimed in the past that Teo met his GF, so its hardly conjecture to say there is some BS here.

wiwille:Lost Thought 00: wiwille: I can't understand why most of the media reporting on this is missing this obvious detail.

The answer is simple. Notre Dame has told the various outlets, including ESPN, that if they don't go along with their official explanation, they will cut them off from all access to the university and their students and employees. This is why Te'o is giving an interview today only to ESPN, so they can control the message and not open this up to general questioning

[urbanflyventures.com image 400x300]

You really think its coincidence that the AD's interview was with CSN, aka NBC, who has a hell of alot of money to lose if the ND football program blows up

Manti is gay. The girlfriend was invented so he and his boyfriend could be cute in public on Twitter without actually being public. The death was their breakup. ESPN saw a game coming up in California where his girlfriend would attend and they wanted to put her on TV for Musburger to make creepy comments. Fearing the truth would come out, she had to die.

What's really blowing my mind is TFA says Kekua's mom was controlling the Kekua Twitter account. Regardless of Te'o's involvement or non-involvement, this has all the makings of a bad made-for-TV movie where a mom and her beautiful daughter are in on a ruse together.

sigdiamond2000:Whatever the outcome of this story and whatever the reason behind the hoax, can we all finally agree that ESPN is an absolute joke that should never be taken seriously as a legitimate source for sports news ever again?

This is not a repeat from last year, or the year before that, or....

They are "entertainment" and not news. They often get the breaking news and make it a narrative.

KingsleyZisou:ongbok: NaziKamikaze: At least Johnny Manziel won the Heisman. Imagine the voting if this bullshiat wasn't always in the air.

Hell, since it's obvious he was compliant in this, he should be vacated from the list of eligible recipients.

That is one reason why I think this was a marketing scheme setup by either ND, an agent or a booster to raise Teo's Heisman stock. Also if this was just Teo doing this himself without the school's knowledge, I don't think they would be sticking with him through all of this especially with this thing getting sillier and sillier by the minute. ND is part of this hoax and they are trying to keep it from coming out.

I too don't understand ND's motivation to support Teo. If he is a fraud, throw him under the bus and protect the institution. I however don't think the school is "in on it." What would they have to gain from such a scheme? Maybe publicity from the Heisman campaign but that only happened in year 4 of this charade.

I think Teo had convinced the administration that he is a victim. Pathological liars will spin any situation to suit their needs. They are very good at convincing people. Just my theory though.

/this while thing is hilarious//Catfish and Lance Armstrong are doing backflips with joy today

Or he may have been really scammed by someone. And if he was it probably involved him sending them money. It could have been somebody that befriended him on Facebook or whatever and used his naivety to lead him on and con him into sending them money over the years.Then decided to go for the big score and threatened to expose the whole thing if he didn't pat up. This has been known to happen.

I think that it's very important that we get to the bottom of a random football player's potential love life. Let's continue to make conjecture based on no knowledge whatsoever and interpret it to be what we want to believe.

I just find it really odd that everyone always wants to believe the star football player is gay (prior to this, it was Tebow).

I'm going with #3 considering how Samoan culture, Mormonism, the NFL, and the Catholic Church view homosexuality. Plus if that was the case, his boyfriend was a pastor.

/also if it is #3, Te'o has to be farked up in the head

Those were my same thoughts when I first heard about it too.

That and the story was probably fed from all the bullshiat human interest stuff they feel the need to now throw at us with all the game breaks. No Todd I really don't give a shiat about what you had for dinner last night or if Joe Paterno is older than scotch tape. Dumb as shiat sideline token female reporters asking a coach "So Coach your team is sucking out there. What do you think you'll do differently in the next half?" "Uh, not suck?" I now know more about a player's wife's cancer or eri son's autism than I know about his sacks for the year. STFU and just show us football please?

wiwille:I can't understand why most of the media reporting on this is missing this obvious detail.

The answer is simple. Notre Dame has told the various outlets, including ESPN, that if they don't go along with their official explanation, they will cut them off from all access to the university and their students and employees. This is why Te'o is giving an interview today only to ESPN, so they can control the message and not open this up to general questioning

According to Deadspin and ND, Manti and his family reported his victimness to the administration, and they launched a full investigation on Dec 26th.

Then on Jan 3rd Manti talked to a reporter about her and how much he missed her. Why would you do that when you know she's not real? It's because he made her up all along. He's no vicitm, and I can't understand why most of the media reporting on this is missing this obvious detail.

FraggleStickCar:RAWISRADFORD: I don't think they were "boyfriend and girlfriend" for four years.

So what starts as a setup by a hanger on(er) intensifies in his senior year with a money grab planned after the draft.

Plans to meet - expressions of love.

But as the "missed" dates and meetups pile up - the mark loses interest.

the "prankster" looks to string him along with car accidents and cancer as reasons for not being able to meet and when even that's doesn't work - well cut and run "she's dead".

I grew up around some of these insulated religious islanders. If anyone would call someone they have only communicated with on the phone or online - it's these guys - and farkers.

Again the problem with that is that Mani claimed to have met her. What reason would he have to lie about meeting her if he truly believed she was real and was duped?

Tuiasosopo got an old school acquaintance who barely remembered him to send a picture to a friend in the hospital by telling her he thought she was pretty. Not that big of a step to convince another chick to pretend to be someone else for a meeting in order to lighten up his bro's day, you know?

Saw it happen in real time. More than one occasion. I'm always more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to the dupes, when shiat like this comes down the pike. Unlike others, I never find that shiat funny or say that the dupe deserved it.

ATRDCI:For those wondering why he doesn't just come out, he's an Hawaiian mormon, who are (at least generally) very sheltered and conservative, and is going to the school that hasn't let a LGBT group form for 20 years, and now they are letting it form, they are forcing the group to promote chastity.

Add in to the fact that his dad probably didn't want to believe his star football son was gay, I can understand why he created the girlfriend (though the car accident/cancer part was not smart)

That's why I believe that this is not only the most likely scenario, but the one that puts Te'o in the most sympathetic light. If he comes out, he's upsetting every institution that raised him, not to mention the great unknown of being the first openly gay active athlete in an NFL locker room.

Te'o was complicit in the story for promotional purposes, then teams will wonder about his mental stability and/or selfishness. His draft stock will drop.

Teams believe that Te'o was led on by a girl for three years without ever wondering why he could never see her, they will think he's incredibly gullible and ... well, stupid. His draft stock will drop.

Te'o is gay, and used the story for coverage ("oh, I have a girlfriend, but you can't talk about her. She's in Hawaii. And dying."), his draft stock will drop. That's just the way homophobia in sports works.

I just can't see how this can come out positive for the guy. Besides, who is in the market for a slightly undersized Samoan linebacker?

SlothB77:thecpt: Well the movie was decent, but now it's popular due to MTV and it's a perfect label for an emerging and alarming trend.

Really, I don't think that show is scripted. They found one of the best ways to find the crazy in the world on the cheap.

i don't watch MTV anymore. They have a show that is basically a reality version of Catfish now?

Yes. Same format as the movie only condensed to an hour. Same guy doing it but he finds someone else who may or may not be duped. Pretty good for latenight/guilty pleasure kind of stuff. I don't recommend watching it normally.

Only problem with this is that Manti, his father, and the university all claimed more than once and on separate occasions that Manti and his "girlfriend" had frequently met each other and spent time together in person. It's pretty clear that he was in on the whole sham on some level.

Check out the Deadspin article for more info: Link

Also, the idea he's a dupe is just not plausible. We live in the age of Skype and Facetime. He never did a video chat with this person? Please.

Hell 14 or so years ago I was using the little videoconferencing program that came with windows. I think it was called netmeeting. Anyway, that technology has been usable by anyone with a webcam almost as long as this kid has been alive. Definitely not plausible unless they had a real girl on the other end playing Lennay. I doubt that happened because the guy was sent pics of another girl who wasnt in on it.

Picture Ims/Netmeetings/Skype video conferencing can be faked in real time. Adult Chat Hos have been using (and perfecting) the technology for like 15 years, man. A phone call don't mean shiat. Meetings don't have to mean shiat. A skype meeting doesn't mean shiat either.

IAmRight:Incorrigible Astronaut: Four years and he never met her in person (Wait, he claimed that he did)?

Well, it's possible he met SOMEone who was supposedly the person behind the accounts.

/seriously, wtf is "Catfish" and why the hell have so many people heard of it?//I mean, I looked it up...I just want to know why anyone who knows anything about football would also have a connection with that

Its called Netflix and there are only so many movies with Tom Cruise or Matt Damon running around doing the most unrealistic and absurd stunts one can watch before they get tired of that shiat and want to watch something else. The concept of Catfish was original in that no other movie had centered the plot on a relationship formed solely via social media and how that could develop over time.

IAmRight:Incorrigible Astronaut: Four years and he never met her in person (Wait, he claimed that he did)?

Well, it's possible he met SOMEone who was supposedly the person behind the accounts.

/seriously, wtf is "Catfish" and why the hell have so many people heard of it?//I mean, I looked it up...I just want to know why anyone who knows anything about football would also have a connection with that

Well the movie was decent, but now it's popular due to MTV and it's a perfect label for an emerging and alarming trend.

Really, I don't think that show is scripted. They found one of the best ways to find the crazy in the world on the cheap.

Incorrigible Astronaut:ExperianScaresCthulhu: I think this is sweet and inevitable. It only took 20, 25 years of internet usage within the general population before the media publically shammed a celebrity for being scammed by a fake boyfriend/fake girlfriend. Of course, money is involved.

Dude's a dupe, a victim.

So what should the legal punishment be for faking an online persona in order to fake a relationship with a dupe? or faking an online persona in order to get cash and gifts? or faking an online persona in order to scam charity money from others?

Your point operates on the premise that he was the most naive and stupid person on the planet. Four years and he never met her in person (Wait, he claimed that he did)? Skyped? "Duped" his father and former teammates into believing that she was real? If he knew her for four years, why didn't he go to her funeral, talk to her family, etc.?

I agree with the person in the last thread that cited Occam's Razor. He's gay, and this gave him a convenient excuse to ignore everything that was thrown his way (and garner sympathy votes in the process). The media seems to be trying their damnedest to turn Te'O into a victim of some nasty prankster (again, for FOUR FARKING YEARS), but I don't buy it.

It's because it happens. And the media is treating it unsympathetically because money and a charity are involved. But yes, it is possible to be duped for years. If women can be duped into thinking they're marrying a man (the wooden toilet roll story that was posted here a couple months back people still reference, or the Brandon Teena story with the dildo), then somebody else can dupe an entire family that they're real and that there's a perfectly plausible reason why no one should go to their funeral.

ongbok:NaziKamikaze: At least Johnny Manziel won the Heisman. Imagine the voting if this bullshiat wasn't always in the air.

Hell, since it's obvious he was compliant in this, he should be vacated from the list of eligible recipients.

That is one reason why I think this was a marketing scheme setup by either ND, an agent or a booster to raise Teo's Heisman stock. Also if this was just Teo doing this himself without the school's knowledge, I don't think they would be sticking with him through all of this especially with this thing getting sillier and sillier by the minute. ND is part of this hoax and they are trying to keep it from coming out.

I too don't understand ND's motivation to support Teo. If he is a fraud, throw him under the bus and protect the institution. I however don't think the school is "in on it." What would they have to gain from such a scheme? Maybe publicity from the Heisman campaign but that only happened in year 4 of this charade.

I think Teo had convinced the administration that he is a victim. Pathological liars will spin any situation to suit their needs. They are very good at convincing people. Just my theory though.

/this while thing is hilarious//Catfish and Lance Armstrong are doing backflips with joy today

NaziKamikaze:At least Johnny Manziel won the Heisman. Imagine the voting if this bullshiat wasn't always in the air.

Hell, since it's obvious he was compliant in this, he should be vacated from the list of eligible recipients.

That is one reason why I think this was a marketing scheme setup by either ND, an agent or a booster to raise Teo's Heisman stock. Also if this was just Teo doing this himself without the school's knowledge, I don't think they would be sticking with him through all of this especially with this thing getting sillier and sillier by the minute. ND is part of this hoax and they are trying to keep it from coming out.

Swoop1809:Can he just come out and tell us he's gay? We are far more accepting of that than someone having a creepy fake dead girlfriend. It's ok to be gay, Manti. We won't love you any less. You dont have to double down

He's going all in on this one. Forget doubling down, Te'o is betting the entire stack. (as well as his position in the draft order this year)

Maybe not. Fark doesn't do Black Twitterverse stories (see also, the suicide of Freddie E two weeks ago after he was allegedly slipped some molly on his birthday). Anyway, the Jasmine and Mike story was fked up -- and completely normal, in this day and age. Mhissy is a sociopath.

Yeah, hes gonna be victiming right to the bank. This dude is gonna be able to demand millions for an interview at this point. This probably wont even hurt his draft chances. At the very least he ran with what might have started out as a hoax on him. At the point he went with it, he became implicit in it.

Only problem with this is that Manti, his father, and the university all claimed more than once and on separate occasions that Manti and his "girlfriend" had frequently met each other and spent time together in person. It's pretty clear that he was in on the whole sham on some level.

Check out the Deadspin article for more info: Link

Also, the idea he's a dupe is just not plausible. We live in the age of Skype and Facetime. He never did a video chat with this person? Please.

Swoop1809:Can he just come out and tell us he's gay? We are far more accepting of that than someone having a creepy fake dead girlfriend. It's ok to be gay, Manti. We won't love you any less. You dont have to double down

Hell, I'd argue that he'd be better off admitting this. Cut the lies, the bullshiat, etc. Just come out already. Yeah, you'll have problems with some of the more ignorant fools on whatever team drafts you, but fark 'em. Be a trailblazer...and be HONEST most of all.